How Much Money Did Britain Lose In The Boston Tea Party
Everyone knows nigh the Boston Tea Party, correct? King George III of England levied still some other taxation on the American colonists, this time on the virtually basic and necessary commodity of tea. Information technology was the last act before the kettle of revolution began to boil over.
I dark, a grouping of patriots disguised as Native Americans boarded British ships moored in Boston Harbor and chucked crates of the male monarch's tea into the h2o in an deed of protestation. The bold defiance sent a signal to King George Iii, letting him know Americans weren't going to take whatever more shit from the crown and sparked the kickoff flames of the American Revolution.
There'due south only i problem — well, a few problems. Essentially, that entire narrative is false. While the Boston Tea Political party was a real thing that happened on Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1773, the actual machinations of the at present historical outcome unfolded much differently, nether different circumstances, and for different reasons.
Let'south accept a look at why everything yous call back you know about the Boston Tea Party is probably a fleck off.
The Boston Tea Party Was Not a Response to a New Tea Revenue enhancement
Americans hate paying taxes; this was besides the example in colonial times, so it would brand sense that the overt display of disobedience like the Boston Tea Party would have been spurred by withal another financial brunt imposed on the average citizen from across the Atlantic — but information technology wasn't. The Boston Tea Party took identify due to a lack of a tax.
The British East India Company (EIC) had long supplied much of the British world with tea. But, when the world economy shifted, the company constitute itself with a surplus of tea that information technology couldn't sell without taking a loss. King George Three and his Parlament intervened and hooked the visitor up with a pretty sweet bailout.
The solution was to give EIC a free pass on taxes due to the crown for any tea that came into England and was so spring for the American colonies. The only fee the company would pay was a small import duty once the tea reached the colonies. This allowed the Due east India Company to reduce the consumer price for its tea in America while still maintaining a healthy profit that was nigh entirely tax-free. Lower tea prices for colonists should have been a skilful affair, right? It wasn't that unproblematic.
The tax forgiveness for the EIC enraged the American colonists for a couple of reasons. Beginning, information technology was yet another example of government decision-making taking place thousands of miles away and with no input from those it impacted.
More importantly, the new reduced-toll East Bharat tea was cheaper than what smugglers had been charging for tea they were bringing into the country from Holland. This system was working well and circumventing British tax. The tax alter dealt a straight blow to the local undercover tea economy in the colonies and took coin out of many people's pockets.
It Wasn't the Male monarch's Tea
As mentioned higher up, the tea that was thrown into the harbor didn't belong to the crown or England but to a private British entity, the Eastward India Company.
Dumping it into Boston Harbor was more of a direct centre finger to the EIC, which was benefitting from stealing their black market tea trade, and a sort of secondary insult to King George, who actually made the tax modify. The Boston Tea Party was a rather farthermost act of protest, and it certainly got the king's attending and drew his wrath, even if information technology wasn't technically England's tea.
The Ships Weren't British
Okay, and so perhaps the tea didn't belong to the king, and neither the authorities nor the EIC was going to feel any pressure from the loss of the physical goods that were destroyed, but the actual ships that were raided and vandalized were British vessels, yeah?
Surely their British owners would be miffed that the colonists had boarded their ships and destroyed cargo that they had been contracted to deliver. Perhaps they would accept been — if the ships' owners were British.
Three ships were raided in Boston Harbor on Dec. sixteen: the Beaver, the Dartmouth, and the Eleanor. All were built in America and were privately owned, at least in part, by American colonists.
The Native American Disguises Were a Argument, Not an Attempt to Shift Blame
Usually, when someone puts on a disguise, information technology's because they're trying to conceal their real identity. Depending on the disguise, the wearer may also be trying to scapegoat a detail person or group for their nefarious actions. Therefore, it's logical to assume the ship boarders dressed upwards as Native Americans to brand information technology wait like local natives had done the tea dumping — just that's not how it went down. Even in the traditional narrative, information technology doesn't make much sense.
According to Benjamin Carp, a history professor and published author on the Boston Tea Party, the disguises weren't worn in an endeavor to pivot the blame on Native Americans. Instead, they were piggybacking on the epitome of the Native American as the ultimate anti-colonialist as part of their statement of protestation against British rule, possessing an attitude of defiance, unwavering spirit, and a determination to prevail.
The people who tossed the tea wanted the king and the EIC to know it was colonists who did the deed. If concealing their identity was the just goal, they could have simply donned masks. Instead, what the participants were wearing served every bit more than of a costume than a disguise to send a bigger message regarding the spirit of the human activity.
Eyewitnesses also noted that no one was really fooled past how the 100 or so participants were dressed. Still, the getups worked well enough to continue all just one man, Francis Akeley, from beingness personally identified, arrested, and imprisoned.
The Boston Tea Party Didn't Straight Lead to Further Revolutionary Actions
There's no incertitude that many American colonists were less than thrilled with King George III. Still, the tossing of the tea into the harbor wasn't the actual spark that lit the revolutionary fire, but it was a necessary precursor. Rex George's retaliation against the colonies for the Boston Tea Political party and its message of American defiance was the spark.
While information technology wasn't the king'due south tea or his ships, the British government was not pleased by what unfolded in Boston, and the EIC and the British government were securely entwined. As a upshot, the king needed to reassert his dominance over the colonists and remind them who was in charge. This was accomplished past the passage of the Coercive Acts of 1774, which were known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. Information technology'southward no coincidence that the first 3 applied to Massachusetts exclusively.
The get-go act closed Boston Harbor and put a Royal Navy blockade in place to ensure that the but things going in or out of the port were for the benefit of British soldiers stationed there. The blockade was to remain in place until the colonists compensated the East India Company for the destroyed tea.
The 2nd human activity placed all local governments under the direct control of appointees decreed by the crown. Those appointees had the last say on who was appointed as judges, sheriffs, and jurors: essentially, every aspect of the police. It also restricted boondocks meetings to one per twelvemonth to prevent any farther spread of what was considered to exist mob rule.
The third act allowed the imperial governor to movement trials to other countries or fifty-fifty to England if information technology was determined "that an indifferent trial cannot exist had inside the said province." This effectively eliminated the right to a fair trial by i's peers, which flew in the face of the Magna Carta that had been in identify since 1215.
The fourth and final human activity applied to all 13 American colonies, and it allowed high-ranking military officers the right to demand better accommodations for British troops and to refuse locations for quarters that they deemed inconvenient. It also required the colonists to provide these accommodations at their ain expense. (It did non, withal, crave colonists to permit soldiers live in their homes with them — that's some other unremarkably-held misconception — but in some cases, information technology required colonists to requite upwardly their homes to British soldiers.)
Once the colonists were subjected to the Intolerable Acts, truthful revolutionary sentiments began to take shape. The Acts went into place in May and June of 1774, and on September 4, 1774, the Outset Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. From there, the residue is American history.
Relearning American History
The stories from history we're taught as small children are virtually always more complicated when you dig downwards into them equally an adult. The events are understandably simplified then kids tin absorb them and fit them into some kind of bones historical narrative, which is fine and necessary. You're not going to explicate the Due east India Company, British Imperialism, and how black markets and smuggling work to an eight-twelvemonth-old kid — you're just going to tell them it was the king's tea.
But there are lots of folks who but kind of let the effectively details launder over them when they're exposed to the events again in high school or in that YouTube video they watched that i fourth dimension late at nighttime.
Also, the simpler stories are often better stories, and they tend to stick. And sometimes, the spin put on events by newspapers and pamphleteers of the time only endures. Plus, explaining, "Actually, how it really happened was…" can sometimes experience like explaining why a joke is funny.
As we get older and wiser, nosotros realize nada happens in a vacuum and that there's always fashion more going on than what makes information technology to the surface of whatever story. This holds true for the Boston Tea Party, but information technology'southward likewise true of other events surrounding the American Revolution, such every bit the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's midnight ride, and fifty-fifty precisely how and when the signers of the Proclamation of Independence put their names to parchment.
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Source: https://freerangeamerican.us/boston-tea-party/
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